Tuesday, December 05, 2006

A Crystallized Justificationn

Today for the first time I got a crystallized justification of why PM Seniora does not want to step down.

The Presidency is with March 8 as well as the Parliament leadership. March 8 are now demanding 1/3 of the Cabinet seats, which will give March 8 control over the three branches of the government. Having 1/3 of the Cabinet seats, March 8 can veto holding a certain Cabinet meeting, can stall tabled draft laws, and have the power to topple the Cabinet.

My question is then: where do you see a balance of power between the three branches of government? And where do you see partnership in running the country?

A solution floating in the political sphere right now is calling for the formation of a Cabinet of Technocrats to manage the affairs of the state before it's time for new Presidential elections. I don't know if March 8 will agree to this solution.

There is this sick feeling I have when I wake up everyday. I don't know where the country is heading. Yesterday's news was disturbing; more clashes, this time protestors entered into a street not under the purview of the Army and ISF who were positioned in an adjacent street, and started breaking glass and destroying cars. Two were wounded. And then protestors blocked the road to the airport which was then re-opened and cleared after the Army's intervention.

General Suleiman is calling on the political forces to solve their problems quickly because the sectarian overtones characterizing the street clashes will compromise the Army's neutrality.

This is all happening while politicians are calling for calm, then how about if they stop doing that?

At any rate, this goes to show that our sectarian system has failed miserably.

On another point, a close source living in Saudi let me know that when March 8 started threatening to go down on the streets, his U.S. corporation received more than 800 resumes from young Lebanese applicants.

I know very well that many are not down on the streets, but in their homes ready to leave the country. My brother in law whose business suffered after the war this summer, is planning to head to Africa. He has charged political views, but he at the end of the day has a family and sees no future in Lebanon, just flashbacks of a civil war he lived through which he refuses to have his son witness if worse comes to worse.

"Nobody knows how many rebellions, besides political rebellions, ferment in the masses of life which people earth."